>> if you look at the past impasses we have had in the past years, where we have had these every few months, it has largely banned mitch mcconnell and harry reid who have trumped up something toward the end to avert shutdowns and the like. they together have averted a tax hike last december. it is an interesting fact that the senate, even though it is normally seen as the body that cannot get anything done, it has more bipartisanship right now, and there is more of an incentive for the senators to try to get something done. house members are more polarized. they are worried more about primaries than general elections. the best case scenario here is that the senate does craft a compromise that both parties can live with, and it is take it or

leave it to the house right up until the deadline, and you figure enough democrats and republicans come together to send it across to the white house. >> stephen dennis, thank you so much for your time. >> absolutely. >> here are president obama's remarks from the white house earlier today. afterwards, we will hear from senators reid and mcconnell from the senate floor. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> good afternoon, everybody. for the past couple of months, i have been working with leaders of both parties to try to forge an agreement that would

grow our economy and shrink the deficit, a balanced plan that would cut spending in a responsible way but also ask wealthy americans to pay more and protect our middle-class and everyone striving to get into the middle class. i want to get this done. it is the right thing to do for our families, businesses, and our economy, but the hour for immediate action is here. it is now. we are at the point where in four days every american's tax rates are scheduled to go up by law. every americans' paychecks will get considerably smaller. that would be the wrong thing to do for our economy, it would be bad for middle-class families, and it would be bad for businesses that depend on family spending. congress can prevent it if they act right now.

i just had a good and constructive discussion here at the white house with leadership about how to prevent the tax hike on the middle class. we may reach an agreement that can pass both houses in time. senators reid and mcconnell are working on such an agreement as we speak, but if an agreement is not reached in time between senator reid and senator mcconnell, then i will urge senator reid to bring to the floor a basic package for an up or down vote to protect the middle class from an income tax hike, extends the vital lifeline of unemployment insurance to 2 million americans looking for a job, and lays the groundwork for future cooperation on more economic growth and deficit reduction. i believe such a proposal could pass both houses with

bipartisan majorities as long as those leaders allow it to come to a vote. if members of the house or senate want to vote no, they can, but we shall let everybody vote. that is the way this is supposed to work. if you can get a majority in the house and in the senate, then we should be able to pass the bill. the american people are watching what we do. their patience is already thin. this is déjà vu all over again. america wonders why it is that in this town you cannot get stuff done in an organized timetable. everything always has to wait until the last minute. we are at the last minute. the american people are not going to have any patients for a politically self-inflicted wound to our economy. not right now. the economy is growing, but sustaining that will require

elected officials to do their jobs. the housing market is recovering, but that could be impacted if folks are seeing smaller paychecks. the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since 2008. you are seeing businesses and consumers hold back because of the dysfunction they see in washington. economists, business leaders think we are poised to grow in 2013 as long as politics in washington do not get in the way of america's progress. we've got to get this done. i want to repeat -- we had a constructive meeting today. senators reid and mcconnell are discussing a potential agreement or we can get a bipartisan bill out of the senate over to the house and done in a timely fashion so we met the december 31 deadline. given how things have been working in this town, we always

have to wait and see until it actually happens. the one thing the american people should not have to wait and see is some sort of action, so if we do not see an agreement between the two leaders in the senate, i expect a bill to go on the floor -- i have asked senator reid to do this -- put a bill on the floor of that make sure taxes on the middle class does not go up, that unemployment insurance is available for 2 million people, and it lays the groundwork for additional deficit reduction and economic growth steps that we can take in the new year. let us not miss this deadline. that is the bare minimum we should be able to get done. it should not be hard since democrats and republicans say they do not want to see taxes go up on middle-class families. i have to repeat -- outside of washington, nobody understands how it is that this seems to be a repeat pattern over and over

again. ordinary folks -- they do their jobs. they meet deadlines. they sit down and they discuss things and then things happen. if there are disagreements, they sort through the disagreements. the notion that our elected leadership cannot do the same thing is mind-boggling to them. it needs to stop. i am modestly optimistic that an agreement can be achieved. nobody will get 100% of what they want. let us make sure that middle- class families and the american economy and the world economy are not adversely impacted because people cannot do their jobs. thank you very much, everybody. >> now senate majority leader

and minority leader mitch mcconnell talk about a deal to avert the fiscal cliff. they spoke on the senate floor after a meeting at the white house. >> i talked to the republican leader generally, everyone knows we have been to the white house, we have had a constructive meeting. we hope that something positive will come from that. the republican leader and i and our staffs are working to see what we can come up with. we should not take a long time to do that. it would be in everybody's interests if we were not in session tomorrow. it is my plan to come in at 1:00. we have an hour in a previous agreement that we have, an hour of debate on that, we will have a vote.

we have another vote that has been set up -- a simple majority -- >> mr. leader, you're talking about sunday? >> yes. for us, we will have another caucus following that, and by that time we will make a determination, senator mcconnell and i, whether we can do something on the floor in addition. i think we need that time to have everybody step back a little bit. if we come up with something that is not that easy, we are dealing with big numbers, and we're dealing with something somewhat complicated. but it was a very positive meeting. there was not a lot of hilarity in the meeting. everyone knows how important it is. it was a very serious meeting. we took an extended period of time waiting for us. >> mr. president, i share the

view of the leader, we had a good meeting at the white house. we are engaged in discussions, the majority leader and myself, and the white house, in hopes that we can come forward as early as sunday and have a recommendation that i can make to my conference and the majority leader can make his conference. so we will work hard to see if we can get there in the next 24 hours. so i am hopeful and optimistic. >> i am going to do everything i can. i am confident senator mcconnell would do the same. whenever we come up with, it will be a perfect, and some people are not going to like it. some people will like get less, but that is where we are. i feel confident that we have an obligation to do the best we can, and that was made very clear in the white house, that we can do very best we can for the caucasus and the country is waiting for us to make a decision. >> both chambers will gavel back

in this weekend before the end of the year. earlier today, harry reid said he will bring the senate back into session on sunday at 1:00 p.m. eastern, and the house will return at 2:00 p.m. eastern on sunday, with votes expected in 6:30at 6:30? ris mccain and carl levin spoke to reporters for about half an hour. >> why don't you give them a bunch over here and let them pass it out.

ok, sorry for the delay. we thought we had a vote, but there was no vote. senator mccain and i are part of a group of eight senators who have been working for about a month to come up with a proposal for our leaders and our conferences, which will hopefully overcome the gridlock that has so permeated the u.s. senate. the eight senators who have participated in this effort are myself, senator mccain, senator schumer, senator alexander, senator cardin, senator kyl, senator prior, and senator barasso. it is a bipartisan proposal, and we believe strongly we must reform the senate's procedures

if it is going to do business more efficiently and fairly. there are many parts to our proposal, i would say the key number-one part is to give the majority leader options to overcome the filibuster and the threat of a filibuster on a motion to proceed. that has been the greatest problem around here in terms of working on bills. we cannot get to bills if there is a filibuster or a threat of a filibuster on a motion to proceed, which has happened dozens of times and just takes a week to overcome that threat just to get to debate the bill. we spent days and days and days trying to get a bill to the floor so it can be debated.

our number one goal was to give the majority leader options to overcome that motion to filibuster to proceed, and we have two options that he has under the rules. the new options, number one, would be that there would be four amendments that would be guaranteed right up at the beginning, two for the majority, two for the minority. you would see how that would work. and then after that, those four amendments are disposed of in the order indicated. we would then be right back on the regular order of the senate. those amendments -- there could

be a motion to table those amendments -- they could be filibustered, they could be offered side by side to the senate, so the republican manager could offer the amendment and then the democratic manager could offer an alternative to that first amendment of the republican manager. then it would go to the republican leader to offer an amendment, and then the majority leader would have the final so- called privileged amendment. they could be themselves filibustered. they could be offered side-by- side to the senate. the republican manager could offer an amendment and the democratic manager could offer an amendment to that first manager, and then it would go to the republican leader to offer an amendment. then the majority leader would have the final so-called

privilege. we do all this by the standing order of the senate, which has the same effect as the rules, but requires 60 votes to be adopted. and we would sunset the standing order after two years so we could see how this worked out. there is another alternative, another option available to the majority and the minority leader. then, it would go immediately to the bill. it would be agreed on by the two of them. in addition to what i have just described, the ways of getting the bill passed the blockages that exist here, there are other parts to this proposal. we would expedite going to conference. all three motions would be collapsed into one cloture, which would last two hours. no post-cloture time. we would add nominations, an expedited process of getting nominations directly to the calendar. we would allow the regular orders to apply to cabinet officers. the rule at the district court as indicated in this proposal -- their regular orders would not exist up to the point of closure, -- cloture, but post- cloture, would be up to

district judges. this is an issue the majority has had to face. effectively you would say the post-cloture part of that, which is so troubling, given that they period would be reduced to a two-hour period. we also have a whole page you're on current practices in order to overcome the gaps -- here on current practices in order to overcome the doubts on the floor. where the majority leader alerts the senate of his intention -- and the presiding officer, as he can are under the current rules, would if there are no senators seeking recognition -- we're not in the middle of a quorum call and there are no orders to the

contrary -- then the presiding officer can put the question to the body. it has not been used. it is a way of addressing this filibuster by not doing anything. we're trying to stop out by urging our leaders -- this is on page 4 -- to stop that. this practice has been approved for a long time around here. if no senator seeks recognition, then the chair may put the question to overcome some of these filibusters' that so far have been able to succeed without anybody talking. we are trying to overcome that and those delays as well. so, we are proposing on a bipartisan basis as a way to end the major sources of gridlock around here.

to try to identify those major sources of gridlock and to address it by giving the majority leader the power to look through those blockages and to do it in a fair way by allowing the minority to offer amendments. again, this is a recommendation to our leaders and our conferences for them to participate in. of course, senator mccain has been my partner in this and so many other things. >> i want to thank senator levin, as usual comeuppance -- as usual, for his help. it has been a pleasure to work with him for many years. also want to thank senator cardin, senator alexander. we have had numerous meetings. as we have seen this looming

crisis appear on the horizon. right now, the country's attention and that of the media is on the fiscal cliff, and i understand that. economy of the nation and the world may be at stake here. i think that sooner or later, there will be some kind of an agreement. will we are talking about here is a fundamental change in the ruling, the possibility of a fundamental change in the way the senate does business peeping basically changing the rules of the senate from either 60 votes, sometimes 67, to 51 votes, which would make as no different than the house of representatives, and of course would reduce us in many respects not to irrelevance in the minority party.

here is the problem. on one side, the majority leader and the democrats are frustrated by their inability to move forward with legislation. every time there is an opposition to a motion to proceed, which takes days and then they proceed, and that has made the united states congress -- one of the reasons why the united states congress is judged the least productive congress since the year 1947. so, understandably the majority is frustrated with their inability to move legislation. on the other hand, the republicans, the minority in this case, are frustrated by our inability to propose amendments that will be voted on. now there has been a new phenomenon in recent years, the years that senator levin and i have been in the senate, and that is called going up the tree. -- filling up the tree.

that means no amendments are allowed. that is what that means keeping no amendments are allowed. then it is an everyday occurrence. almost routinely, with rare exceptions. on one hand, the majority understandably is terribly frustrated because they cannot move legislation. and we, the minority in this case -- we are not always going to be the minority, we know -- are frustrated by the fact we are unable to get amendments and issues that are important to us debated and voted on. so, that is your gridlock. and all of us are totally frustrated with this gridlock. but we have shown from time to time, as we did with the defense authorization bill, that with the agreement between

parties, not resorting to rules bytes, -- rules, with agreement between parties you can move forward with legislative provisions, which we are about to do here. but the majority legislation is being blocked, and once the legislation is brought forward, there is an inability to bring that legislation to a conclusion and final vote. so, there is enormous frustration of the majority. the ones who are pushing this, i might point out, basically want to have a 51-vote rule be the governing principle. most of them honestly have never been in the minority. those who have been in both majority and minority are the

most reluctant to see this. so the majority leader senator reid feels very strongly the frustration. we understand that frustration. and there is the possibility that on january 3, the united states senate -- then a parliamentarian -- would overrule and it would require 51 votes to change the votes of the senate. that, my friends, would be a disaster leading to the destruction of the unique aspect of the united states senate as envisioned by our founding fathers. i also want to point out, i think that senator rudman -- senator levin described very well bringing up legislation and all of that with the hand out here. but i also want to point out that the practices of the senate have been abused. senators now can call from their home state and stop progress on the floor of the

senate. that cannot happen anymore. that cannot happen. if a senator was to block legislation, he or she should go to the floor of the senate and be there for that objection. and if there is no one on the floor to object and the senate is in session, the president of the senate should say, i move the bill. call for a vote. that is the way the senate is supposed to function. and it is not any more. so, we are not only proposing this standing order, which brings about two different options that the majority leader, in agreement with the minority leader, could implement, but we are also destroying the practices of the senate that are the rules of the senate -- restoring the practices of the senate that are the rules of the senate. again, i want to thank senator 11. these are proposals. it will really be up to negotiations between senator

reid and senator mcconnell. i really do not think most of us who have been up here for awhile want to see a nuclear situation where 51 votes could basically govern the way the united states senate functions. so, we are hopeful, both of us. we have greeted our respective caucuses at lunch today. concerns were raised. we had a vigorous discussion. senator levin's caucus was somewhat more vigorous than mine. we did have a vigorous discussion and hopefully this will prevent us from going over to 51 votes on january 3. >> two comments. the current rule would not be

amended. we would have a standing order which has the same effect as a rule to put in place to procedures which i have outlined. two additional procedures -- one of them is up to the majority leader by himself. that would be whether or not to proceed to a bill with this assurance of two amendments per side up front. the second additional option of the majority leader would be where there is a joint cloture petition. we will open it up to questions. this is consistent with senate rules 5. we do not break the rules to change the rules. we stopped a procedure which is totally consistent with senate rule 5 which says the following -- the rules of the senate shall continue from congress to

congress until they are changed as provided for by these rules, which of course is a two-thirds vote. the u.s. senate has never changed the rules of the majority rule. that is the nuclear option. changed the majority vote. we have never done that. there have been comments made as to whether that could be done or not. the current vice president is very strongly opposed to the nuclear option or the constitutional option. >> how can you tell if the most popular filibuster reform rule is to institute the talking filibuster? is that still on the table? >> if a person objects and there is closure, that person can go to the floor for one hour.

they can go up to 30 hours. they can. but the senator has to be on the floor. talking. >> the next question is addressed by the practices section. we urge the leaders to address and make it clear that you must talk. you cannot not talk. you cannot put in quorum call after quorum call. you can put in one quorum call. after that, there would not be additional quorum calls. under the current practices, which are described under the current rules, it has not been in force, and that is what page four is so important. there is the president of the senate that if there is no one seeking to debate, then the chair may call for questions. and by the way, that is cloture

or not cloture. >> [indiscernible] if it is not our rules change, what happened to that cost them? -- >> it just isn't used. >> when did go out of style? >> gradually. people can call from their home states and legislation. one additional comment, also, suppose that that senator is suggesting the absence of a quorum and then he suggests another absence of a quorum. this is another practice that needs to be enforced. >> someone has got to be on the floor.

>> that is current rules. we believe these should be in force. it is not part of a standing order. the standing order addresses the issues that we just described. >> the second suggestion would be ruled mn the question -- >> the key here and would be what we're giving to the majority leader is the pressure to move to a bill which is not something that is a practice which is to be enforced with the current rules. that is a standing order to redress the worst problem which we have around here which is getting to a bill. spending a week with a dead time on the senate floor while there is a filibuster going on on the motion to proceed. that is what we give the majority leader the option and providing the minority is guaranteed to amendments as well

as the majority guaranteed two amendments. >> you are basing this on 60 votes. the problem is that you cannot even get 60 votes. >> we did it with the defense authorization bill. there has got to be an environment that provides these options for the majority leader and minority leader working together with their consciences to move legislation forward and we have shown on several occasions that we are entirely capable of that but we want to do away with the erosion of certain practices like -- stop everything, i object. you can't do that, you have to be down on the floor. then, it might not hold. it has to do the desire to move and i can tell you that many of

us have been around for a while and were so nervous about this possible option that may be there to be a lot more comedy as we just saw with the sandy bill. >> if you are asking whether or not the thing we did get 60 votes for a standing order. >> you want to get to 60. between hopeful that the two caucuses, there will be 60 votes for the standing order. >> does this mean that you and perhaps the democrats are more ambitious option by the junior colleagues. >> the number of us are very deeply troubled by the idea that we produce something in violation to the rules to change

the rules. the senate is a continuing body. i will not try to characterize how many are deeply troubled by the idea of the nuclear option. this has been -- never been used to change the rules. >> when the republicans were in a majority, then there was the judges. i point out with all due respect to our new york colleagues in the senate, some of them have ever been in the majority and some of them have never been in the minority which sometimes dictates behavior which when the issue is on the other foot. >> senator reid has concerned about --

is it any precaution to keep non germain amendments of the bills? >> the senate allows for non relevant amendments. we will change that for the amendments given at the privileged position. how we address that is important. if someone offers a non jermaine amendment, the democrats don't want to vote on, they can offer an alternative to that side by side. we can move the table then of course, we could filibuster it by the way. okay? we do not change the senate practice and by the way, i don't believe that the so-called constitutional option does either if you see the constitutional option, they say that you can debate amendments, they don't provide whatever their procedure is to amendments. they do not restrict the amendments that they talk about

to jermaine amendments or relevant amendments either. there is no difference. those four amendments come on we do not >> those. however, this is kind of important, the two that are in the minority, the manager of the bill and the majority leader. they are the ones that would decide which amendments to go on. this is a cautionary factor. >> we have had robert byrd and he said that every senator has a right to oppose any and that -- propose any amendment on any issue. that does not mean to have the guarantee passage of that amendment. the people of arizona to not send me here to take easy votes, sometimes you have to take tough votes.

so, you take them. to say that we are not going to allow a non jermaine amendment, that is not why i came here. >> there will be a vote on it post cloture. even if there is a cloture and the vote on those amendments, nonetheless it must be voted on. it can be tabled, by the way. there has to be a vote. there is no guarantee they will be voting up or down. >> what did they have to say that your plan? >> i will not characterize this. >> all i can say is that we're hopeful that both our leaders now are using this proposal as a template which is bipartisan. they will be able to sit down and reach common ground and reach the goals which i just articulate. democrats and the majority

understand the would like to move forward with legislation. republicans would like to have amendments. we think that this would provide a path for both of those concerns and priorities can be satisfied. i will say that both have expressed appreciation for our worked. >> that is clear. the number one in pediment to progress in the senate on bills according to our leader, there is a filibuster and the threat of a filibuster and the threat that they received. we address that and give him the power to overcome that in a way which gives reasonable protection of the minority's rights to offer amendments and the goal has been achieved. he very much wanted to and the post cloture 30 an hour provision on judges and it makes

no sense. once a judge gets 60 votes and there is cloture on the amendment, it provides for 30 hours of post cloture debate. our leader would like to remove that 30 our provision which is a huge impediment. we recommend the 30 our time on judges also being reduced to two hours. two of his major goals has been accomplished. he was speak for himself at. >> both chambers of congress will be in this weekend, the senate will be in at one. tonight, the senate approved a $60 billion relief package to aid victims of hurricane sandy.

chuck schumer and houston to the brand talks about what it meant to residents of the state that swept through the region. their remarks are about 15 minutes. -- en ck schumer and kirstwe gillibrand. >> we are elated with the discussion, the allowing of amendments, and the strong support for a bill that would give much needed relief from the storm sandy. we are urging the house to put this bill on the floor quickly and allow a vote. we're asking speaker boehner to do just that, but the bill on

the floor and allow a vote. just as it would be unconscionable for the house to leave without voting on fiscal cliff, it would be unconscionable as well for them to leave without voting on sandy. the strong bipartisan support we got 12 votes from the republicans turn to the fact that if the three democrats the could not be here were here, we would have had 64 on this bill and we still got more than 60 even with those three absences which shows how important this bill was, this gives an impetus to the bill and says to speaker boehner, you will have bipartisan support. please move it, do not ignore the needs of new yorkers, and people in new jersey, and others. we have desperate situations

still in the new york. we have billions and billions of dollars of damage. we have homeowners waiting, watching to see if this bill would pass so that they could begin to think of getting help to rebuild their homes tend to we have small business owners watching and waiting to see if this bill will pass, to see if they can get help to get their businesses going. we have governments both large and small from state and city government, smaller communities like long beach and some others on long island that are just waiting to see if they will get some relief so they can move forward with their plans. we beat back most of the crippling amendments, we beat back all of the crippling amendments and most of the amendments. this is a very very fine day i think in the senate. the century old tradition of

different parts of the country rallying those who are beleaguered because of a difficult natural disaster. the fact that 12 republicans voted for a bill that contained virtually no offsets except for the one amendment that passed last week, that is a full bill, a whole bill, a bill that gets new york and new jersey rapidly on the road to recovery and it fills us with hope that we can get something done and get something done quickly. when we pressed, when we explained to our colleagues what we needed at a desperation here, they listened carefully and we are really very very glad about that. let me say a few specific things, there is very ample funding in this bill for homeowners that lost more than $31,000 of damage and their homes can get relief, so that small business owners who need

more than just loans can get relief. there is ample funding for the army corps, the $1 billion in projects for long island, senator and s.i. which senator gillibrand asked to be passed. they have been authorized and studied. so, we are very very pleased at all of the aid here. now, a couple of more points. mitigation is in this bill. mitigation around new projects that come out of the blue. there simply existing projects to prevent damage from should another sandy-like storm hit us. this will allow for concrete polls, stormproof polls rather than the wooden poles.

it will allow our subway system both at the low lying come under tunnels to put in protections so that the waters want a flood again. and it will allow our hospitals like nyu and coney island and long beach when they rebuild to make sure that they put those extremely expensive machines on higher floors, god forbid there is another flood, they will not be damaged. this is a very strong bill. this is a huge shot in the arm for new york and for the national economy. new york is 10% of the national economy, the new york metropolitan area. we now need the house to act. we are waiting, hoping, and expecting that we will see some action from our house. now, let me turn it over. we had a great partnership here.

senator lautenberg has a strong case of the flu and he could not be here. i want to turn this over to senator gillibrand who has been a great partner as we have been working through rounding up the vote, the strategy of getting this done. >> i would like to thank senator schumer for leading this effort and making sure that the entire chamber understood what folks from new york have gone through. both the senators found dirt and senator menendez made a difference in explaining how hard it jersey was hit. i want to thank our governor for coming down here to talk to us. that made a difference. we have seed -- seen so much suffering in new york. so much hardship, so much hard

break. this is a good step in meeting the needs of new yorkers, new york families, new york homeowners, and in dark business owners. this is a very important for a step because it will allow the homes to be rebuilt. it will also allow a small businesses to get access to capital to start building their businesses again. every time we have seen a disaster in this country, we all rally to that area of the country. that is what we have done this is a very strong bipartisan vote. we have 12 republicans joined us in this bill. i think that sends a very strong signal to the house of representatives, to speaker danger that this is a bipartisan piece of legislation that represents what is best in america. we will always stand next to those in need in their time of need. i beseech the house of representatives to come back into session to vote for on this

bill, an up or down vote. let the house members vote their conscience and now that they can do what is right in stand by those who have suffered greatly. >> senator mikulski did an amazing job. we have been labeled heard the engineer. she got that train running down the track. she got this bill passed in record time. both refer chairs. does senator landrieu gave us a tremendous advise. i want to thank all of the staff that did a great job and all of the people from your. we had the governor. the mayor was down here several times. lots of our business and leadership, we called on them to make calls, particularly to our republican colleagues, those who had connection and those who had helped to bear fruit.

>> do have any confidence that he can get anything on this? >> well, we are hopeful. we have spoken to several of our republican colleagues in the house today and yesterday about making sure. we had a whole bunch of republicans from new york and new jersey in making sure that they asked the leadership to put this bill on the floor. we're also getting the same new york interest for both business and labor leaders to talk to colleagues in the house to make sure that they will vote for the bill. whenever we called on gov. christie. i spoke to him myself a few times. he was there and he did everything we asked. >> this rally has been a bipartisan effort from the beginning. we have had a lot of help across the aisle in crafting the bill and making sure there was amendments so that people had a chance to vote on what they thought was important to shape the bill. that bipartisanship is what i

hope will bring the house leadership to allow an up or down vote in their chamber. >> what happens if the house does not vote? >> we are hopeful that they will. if they do not bode, this would lay very good groundwork for next year. we are hopeful. we don't think that we'll have to go through the whole process again not only because of a large vote. i mentioned last time, i went to the senator and i said, what amendments do you need? lamar alexander said you had better go to colbern because he has a whole bunch of amendments. they said, what do you need? i said, i have seven amendments. if you give us a time limit, we are not here forever. he agreed that some was

unfairly together. we accept one of his unanimously. i think there is good will here. we hope it is a metaphor for the way the senate can work next year. we allow them amendments, they don't block the bill from coming forward. i don't want to get ahead of our leaders. >> and we're still hopeful. >> our goal is to get the house to vote. they have a responsibility on the fiscal cliff, they have a responsibility here on sandy. this is not a partisan vote. if they wanted to amendments on the house floor, that is their prerogative. >> you also have the tax measure

you have been working on. >> we will introduce it early next year because the tax measures are usually done separately from the appropriations measures. we will be introducing it early next year. senator menendez and i on the finance committee. we're trying to get it into a tax break. that is how it has worked in previous disasters when have had tax relief. we will try to put eileen in there, too. onthey're working potentially some kind of agreement for later next week and i'm wondering if there is no debt limit provision in his car negotiation the weather is better to make sure that the package is small enough so that you have enough pieces to trade with when the debt limit comes up. >> let me tell you my view. we don't believe we should be trading debt limits for other things. playing with the full faith and credit of the u.s. makes no sense. we should do the debt limit on

its own. it is one we have already spent. to say that we are going -- not going to pay the bill does not make much sense. i've spoken to both leader read and leader mcconnell on the floor. both agree it was a very good meeting that they had at the white house. there is real potential. we are preparing the bill based on a $250,000 limit to put on the floor monday. we await any proposals by senator mcconnell to modify that. >> what if they want to use this as a way -- >> i don't agree with that. we will see what happens. >> it is the house picking up on the suspension here? >> i don't know. that would be one of the things to be determined. they have a committee and they can work on an expedited basis for the emergency. >> if they try to bring of the

small version of the bill, something to offset the range of the amendment, is that acceptable? is that better than nothing? >> well, we think that this is the bill that they should allow. we would hope that would allow a vote on this bill given its broad bipartisan support and the open process that occurred here. ok, thank you everybody. have a nice evening. >> senate majority leader harry reid announced the senate would be in on sunday at 1:00 p.m. eastern time. the house will be in at sunday at 2:00 p.m. and is possible that the house will take up the sandy relief that has passed in the senate tonight.

both chambers will be likely to take up legislation related to the so-called fiscal cliff as well. tomorrow on pope washington journal" we will continue to look at that this will cliff negotiations and how americans across the income spectrum could be affected if the deadline passes without a deal this is followed by a look at presidential campaigning and the influence of the electoral college with the author of the rise of the president's permanent campaign. then a discussion on hurricane sandy relief funding and a potential legislation we just heard about in congress. we will be joined by dan friedman. "washington journal" alive at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> as president obama begins his second term in office, what is most important issue he should consider for 2013? >> make a short video about your message. >> it is the student can video

competition with your chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. 50,000 total prices. that deadline is january 8th. for more information, go to studentcam.org. >> retired general norman schwarzkopf, commander of forces in desert shield and desert storm died. he commanded a u.s.-led coalition which drove forces under saddam hussein out of kuwait. george is to be bush said that the general epitomized the to become a service, a country creed that has defended the country's freedom and the defense secretary described the four-star army general as one of the great military giants of the 20 century. next, an interview with the retired general on his autobiography. >> general norman schwarzkopf

author of "it doesn't take a hero." "almost every soldier in -- almost every general in desert shield served in vietnam. how much did this impact the rest of your career? >> it had more impact than any other experience i had in my entire military career. many of the decisions that i made in desert storm and desert shield or a direct result of things that we have learned from our vietnam experience. maybe not things that have gone well. you learn just as much piscine things done wrong. you say, i never do it that way and then you will do it differently. it has an unbelievable impact. i came back from vietnam the second time and agonized when it to stay in the military or not. the only way i came to an answer to myself was yes, i would stay but only under the

circumstances and doing it this way. all of that was directly as a result from vietnam. a profound influence. >> you were there twice, once as an adviser to the south vietnam and then in 69. >> i spent five miserable months at headquarters and then from there to seven months as a telling commander. >> go back to your first trip there, 1964, 65. how did to get there? >> i was at west point. i was an instructor. i'd been in california for two years and i got a master's degree and i was obliged to go back to west point. i saw some friends over there. i knew the war was going on. it was an infantryman's war, i was an infantryman. i was concerned about having a soft life, so i volunteered to

go. it happened to be a time when the department i was in was reorganized and they could afford to let me go. that is how i got over there. i got there, went in as an adviser to the south >> so people have been fighting that war for 20 years. it was an incredible experience. >> what was your rank? >> i got promoted to major about a month after and after i had been there. >> first time you got into battle? >> didn't know what was going on. never what you were doubt before. all of a sudden someone is shooting at you and rounds are

going over your head and you continue doing your job but it is chaotic. long periods of boredom were described punctured by periods of terror. that is what was happening. i had a job to do and i kept doing my job. >> how many americans were there? >> it was something like -- i want to say it was like 20,000, 25,000, 30,000 something like that. a very small number when i got there. but that year, it with as dramatic buildup. the only brigade that was there when i was there was the 132 brigade were there.

i was there during a year of tremendous buildup from 1976 to 1966 -- 19671967 and 1966. sidewalk cafes, very laid back sort of humphrey bogartish -- you know what i'm talking about. by the time i left american troops in their uniforms staggering around in the streets that sort of thing. there was a someone who wrote about it. >> you write in your book about the most her oric act i've ever seen.

and you wrote about lunelune. why did he perform the most -- lieutenant earl s. van eiwegian why did he perform the most heroic act you've ever seen? >> we went into du cho, right on the cambodian border from a couple of local d.c. battalions. there were two regimens coming across the border. we ran into them and the next thing we knew we were surrounded. but we had a bunch wounded that had been wounded and frankly, retreated in the special forces camp who were going to die if they did not get out of this. yet, the environment was such that any helicopter that flu out there got such heavy fire from the ground they refused to come out. they just woundn't. there was a high ridge between

us and pleiku. as the story was told to me van eiwegian was sitting in a bar and people were talking about how rough it was out there in du cho and van eiwegian said i will fly out there. i did not come to sit in this bar, i came out here to help. he got his aircraft and he came flying in. we knew he was flying in so we had the wounded ready to run them out on the airstrip. he had to flew over a ridge and these green tracers came up from the ground from every direction. everything in the world was shooting at this guy, he flew through it and landed on the runway. shells were going off all around us. more people getting wounded he just sat there cool as a cucumber. it was dripping fluid.

i can still see the red hydraulic fluid running out from all sides. he sat there and lowered the ramp, we ran the wounded in and other people were getting wounded at the time and he sat at the controls until we gave him the sign, once we had all the people loads and he had to fly across the same ridge on the way out. same thing happened. the sky filled with tracers, he flew through it, then he could have taken the shortest route and gone to pleiku but our base was in saigon and there are better hospitals in saigon. he turns around and flies to saigon and lands. i never met the man. but i have always admired him and this is my chance to hopefully immortalize him a little bit. >> was he moving south vet these

out? >> there was not a single u.s. wounded. these were south vietnam please. >> you talk about how you hear people refer to them as gooks and it irritated you. >> sure it did. it is a term of prejudice. it is a term that tends to paint everyone with a same negative brush. i've got to tell you the ones i served with in that first tour, they were not corrupt, they were not coward, they are brave patriots. many of them were citizens of north vietnam but they were run out of their homes because they were catholic and they were fighting for their country, they were fighting for their freedom, they were fighting for freements of their home land. all the things that we as

americans believe in. that is what they were fighting for. it was not to support a corrupt regime in saigon. that is not what they were there for. i had great respect for them. i did not like it when other americans who didn't know what they were talking about, for the most part, did not know many south have it these talked about them in those terms about them. i was one of them at the time. >> colonel trong? >> amazing man. absolutely, one of the best leaders, combat leaders i have ever seen anywhere and certainly, the most intuitive i've ever seen. he was almost idolized, he was the chief of staff, colonel at

that time. but he was a guy that every time there was a tough nut to crack he they would send him off with a number of troops under them and trung always took me along as his task force advisor. i will never know why that he did that but it with as relationship that worked and i learned a great deal at his side. >> have you seen him since then? >> i have not. went on to be a four-star general. he commanded fourth corps which was the delta area. >> you were wounded that first trip? >> wounded on valentine's day. we called it jokingly after the fact, it was kind of a sick joke

that we called ability the valentine's day massacre. it was funny, that morning -- the night before trung said you have it easy tomorrow. we had we have it easy tomorrow but we're going to have these armored personal carriers and its going to be a piece of cake. they opened from the top. they are designed for american troops to stand in them with their heads sticking out so they piled animal boxes all over the floor so all the south vietamese heads were sticking out like this. my head was sticking out like this. it was a strong hold and a tremendous fight broke out. there was a treeline, the strong hold village was up here and

there was a long line of trees that came out this way. we were coming around the rice pattis and i looked a the time and i thought, i hope someone cleared that treeline. i said "did someone clear that treeline" they said yes, someone cleared it. someone opened up on me with an automatic weapon. i got hit with all the splatter. i got a huge fragment that hit me in the arm, i got hit in the face and in the cheek, and everything like that. after the fact, we looked at this thing, if that fellow had one more click of elevation on his site he would have cut me in half. the recognition that here i was one click on his elevating device away from being dead and yet, because he did not have that on all i got was painful

fragments in me but no death threatening wounds. >> that was the tour that you had to throw yourself on top of a soldier? >> that's right. that was my second tour. the battalion was fought by the japanese had been in there, is koreans that were with us were in the battalion and it was loaded with mines and booby traps. the battalion had gone in there and i had a command control helicopter at my disposal at all times. we were half an hour away from hospitals. any time we would take the casualty we would call for

medevac but it would take a half an hour before they flew in and then half an hour by the time they got back. so it was an hour before they got treated. on this given day a company walked a mine field. i flew in with my helicopter to medevac the casualties out. my helicopter flew off the casualties and then another kid stepped on a mine over to my right. he seriously broke his leg. he started flailing around and screaming and i was worried about two things that number one, he was going to panic the rest of the company and they would run. that would be the worst thing to do and the second thing i was worried about the way he was flailing around, it was obviously a compound fracture and i was worried that he would cut an artery and kill himself.

one of the things i thought about was the sign on harry truman's desk that says the buck stops here. i did not have a choice in the matter. someone had to calm that kid down and i was the senior ranking man there and it was my responsibility. besides that i wanted the company commander who was standing next to me to make sure he got his leadership working, talked to them, got the company calmed down. i went over to help this kid. was that a here eric act? hell, no. i was scared to death. i honestly walking -- each step i would take, i would check the ground first and my knees -- it is only time in my life that my knees were shaken. that was the only time they were ever shaken but, man, they were

shaken. i had to grab my knee with both hands because they were shaking so badly. i got over the kid and i'm a big guy, then as i am now and i laid down on top of him. i literally pinned him and talking to him. i said you are scaring the rest of the troops and this sort of thing and i got the kid calmed down. then i saw that i had to split his leg some way. i turned around and where we came from, the landing zone where the helicopter came in, there was a bush right there. i told bratton, cut a limb, there is a limb on that bush and throw it to me so i can splints this guy's leg. he took one step and a landmine

went off, it blue an leg off, an arm off, and a hole in his head. i was standing as close to that point on to ground as bratton had. if i had not helped that kid i think that would have gotten me too. i got a bunch of stuff in the chest but at -- that is the mine fields. >> when you read the book, the next couple of lines, i think three guys said, major, we'll never forget what you did for the brother. you did that on purpose. you told that on purpose because -- >> the troops i was relying on was a black soldier. i went back to the hospital because i was wounded. they had gone in and cut a bunch of stuff out of my chest.

they went out and cut the stuff out of my chest and they wanted to keep me there and i said no i want to go home. i went to check on bratton because he was there and i wanted to check on the other troops and one of them was this kid to make sure he was doing all right. i walked out and there were three black soldiers there who were from my battalion who had minor injuries and they calm up and said colonel we want you to know we will never forget what you you did for the brother. we will tell all the other brothers in the battalion what you did. it was then it dawned on me that this kid was black. i never judged anyone on the color of their skin or creed or anything else, they are all soldiers and when you are a commander it is your responsibility to take care of

them. it does not matter if you are black, white, green, yellow, i would still run over there and take care of them. >> didn't you run into bratton? >> i did he lives out here in maryland. when i went to the hospital for his final surgery -- >> what year was that? >> this was 1971, a year later, i went into to walter reed to have spinal surgery and i went into ward number one which was an officers orthopedic ward. as i was walking down the hall this voice says "goddamnit, colonel." it was a wonderful moment. the last time he said this was the last time i saw him was when he was a live. what we did in serious cases like that we took him back to the hospital.

they would stabilize them as best as they could then they would put them on an aircraft and ply them to japan. the last time i saw bratton they were putting him on the plearn. and he was very calm and most time i see that is when people are about to die. i said "goddamnit, bratton, hang in there." he said no i'm hanging in there. >> on page 18, this is the only place where you mention this gentleman's name. an a.p. reporter was there for the siege. you quoted hymn was this the first time you met this man? >> first time i met him. he was an unknown reporter at

the time. he heard about a battle and heard that we were surrounded he came in and ended up in the camp. he got surrounded with the rest of us. so this night, we had a battalion commander who was badly wounded and we had to get him out of there or he was going to die. we convinced them to bring out one medevac ship in the dark and peter wanted to get out so we carry -- carried this guy out of the camp. we went out and the helicopter pilot called and said i can't see you. he had his light office and we had our lights off. he said about what forming a t with your flashlights. we formed a t and i had a fellow in front of me and one behind

me. one was peter. we turned on the flashlights and the pilot says i still can't see you. why don't you shake your flashlights around so i can see you? this voice behind me said i don't know about you guys my flashlight a has been shaken since i got out here. he left and that was the last time i saw him but he wrote a good story from du cho. >> i heard you talk about the difference of the numbers in vietnam versus desert storm. what did you learn and other colleagues of yours from the vietnam experience about the press that you applied to grenada where were, or to desert storm? >> i dealt with the press on a different level in vietnam than

when i did in grana da and the zest war. i came away disappointed from the press coverage of vietnam. i saw what i call cook stories. military operations that were well-planned and well-executed and made dull reading. so you throe in a few short rounds or something like that and it becomes a sexy story that sells. i saw that happen. it was bold-face lies. so i came away disappointed and i will confess somewhat prejudice. having said that, by the time grana da came around i had matured beyond that. i learned from my vietnam experience but i believe very much in the public's right to know. it is hard for people to believe

but on the sunday preceding the tuesday that we went into grana da. i sat in a meeting and the plan was to introduce the press -- >> after? >> the military was going to go in and do its thing and not announce it because we wanted to protect the element of surprise. then the press would be introduced at 5:00 that afternoon. but of course what happened is the whole thing went to hell in a handbag. the enemy was supposed to fold and they didn't. by 5:00 the first afternoon, the fog of war was very thick. we didn't know what was going on. there was no way to protect anybody if we introduced the press so that sort of thing. so metcalf made the decision, it

is not going to happen. some members of the press did come in and got in the way, quite frankly, of a military operation. but the lesson we learned from grana da we have to come up with a better way to deal with the press than what happened over there. it was after grana da that the panel met with members of the media to device the system that we used in desert storm, the pool system. it was based upon what happened in grana da and that's why i had to chuckle at the end of the gulf war a exchange met tow decide on how they were going to handle the next situation because nobody was happy about how it was handle in the gulf war. >> did you ever sit around with your fellow army colleagues and say things like if we ever fight

another war this should never happen again? >> no, not quite that. i would tell you, frankly, because of some of the experiences i had towards the end of the vietnam war, -- something that people forget. i had someone put it to me this way, it is my life, if i'm going to go out there and risk it what do you care? >> that is not correct. if a member of press goes with you and is laying out there wounded that is your problem. you are not going to abandon them. you're going to rescue them just like you would anybody else. so to say i'm no problem to you it is my life i can risk it the way i want to, that is not true. it disrupts a military operation. but the climbing on the helicopter, remember, we only had 80 coor respondant events total in vietnam.

you and i both know that all 80 of them were not in the field. there was a lot in saigon eastern places. so the numbers in the field were sparse. they were guys like peter arnette who did get out there in the front line with the troops. in the gulf we ended up with 2, 060 in the country. at the end of the war, all of them wanted to be at the same privy, they wanted to be on the helicopter and report anything they want. it is a big management problem. >> let me ask you about the problem about the dancing girls. it is a classic example. >> when i first got to saudi arabia it was obvious that king fahd made a courageous decision. he could have been criticized by

the whole arab world by introducing foreigners into that part of the world. secondly, drk -- >> were quite nervous about problems that could occur. one of the first things i was hit with you're not going to bring the dallas cowgirls over here to entertain the troops are you? >> those words. i assure you it won't happen.

we have issued laws to prohibit liquor from coming into the country. that caused controversy until i got it settled down. then i got a call and said -- >> the saudi arabian germ? >> yeah. the king is furious, you brought dancing girls into the community. i immediately called my staff and said did we bring dancing girls? of course not, we know what the rules are. what is this about dancing girls? so we went running down and colin says it is on cnn. you brought dransing girls into the country and they are all dancing. we didn't bring any dancing girls in the country. well, i know what it must be. he is trying to cooperate with us. it must be -- it's a female soldier. you have female soldiers that

the troops have put together this show to entertain themselves. you have to make them stop. i said i don't even know what you are talking about. what are you talking about? every half hour is playing on cnn. the first thing you have to do is make cnn take it off the air. obviously, you don't understand the way our television stations work. no way we're going to get them to take it down. every time it plays the religious right calls the king. every half hour they call the king and say see, we told you so. the king was under terrible pressure. first of all, i didn't have any television. secondly, to be honest with you cnn was not supposed to be beamed into the kingdom. what it with was some of these wealthy saudis have these satellite dishes which were picking it up and watching it which was supposed to be

illegal. we did not have a cnn hookup. we only had local saudi tv. to make a long story short -- >> this is november -- >> this was right when we got there. it might have been august. it turned out that an oil company had their own compound down there and these were wives that put together this little show for the entertainment of employees, and when the troops came over as a good will gesture to our troops they said we'll invite the troops and let them -- down, for this show. something in this country would acceptable. even over there it would have been acceptable september somebody got the brilliant idea let's invite the press in.

let's invite the media in to broadcast this to our troops. they were showing the thighs down of these girls who were apparently doing the bumps and gripeds or something like that. of course american troopers are reacting the same way american troopers would react. it was the worst possible thing you could have on television at that time. it did, quite frankly give me -- let me see, how can i say this honestly, because i don't want to portray the saudis in the wrong light. we did not have any cultural problems. this was the only problem we had. it did give me a little bit of pleasure to say, i found out what the problem is and it is your outfit because the oil

company was ran by the saudis. it is your outfit who ran this not my outfit. >> this book has almost 600 pages in it. how did you write it. it says on the cover it is written by peter petre. who is he? >> he is a father and son company with tom watson. peter had been through the process of running through this kind of book again. number two, had no military background at all. he was not going to bring any biases to this story that was his own. peter and i worked for one year on that book. it started with us sitting down and coming up with an outline what is this book going to be about? how much is going to be devoted to the gulf war and early life and that sort of thing?

then hundreds of hours of narrating on tapes then peter would review the tapes come back the next morning ask me a lot of questions to clarify and to translate it into english. military people tend to talk we have our own language and so peter was very good about saying say that in a different way so the readers will understand what you're talking about. then it was transcribed. then peter takes the narration and writes the first chapter. he gives it to me and i rewrote it. he would rewrite what i rewrote give it back to me then i rewrote it again and gave it back to him. that happened for the first 10 or 12 chapters. then one chapter would be

complete and we would submit to the publisher and it started all over again. they would say can't you give us more here to clarify this? then the legal review then the copy editor would come in sose though first chapters probably had about 10 to 11 rewrites before it became the chapter. peter moved down to florida lived in the same complex that i lived in. came into my house at 8:30 in the morning. we worked many days until 7:00 at night. we would work often three, three and half weeks straight. no saturdays, no sundays, right through. that really is the way the first 10 or more chapters were written. at the same time we were -- he was in the process of writing and at the same time

transcribing -- writing the earlier chapters and transciten for the later chapters. he really knocked himself out. >> did the pentagon have review? >> no, didn't have fop once i'm retired from active due any i don't have to submit it to the pentagon unless i use classified information. so i avoided using any classified information but a lot of stuff was declassified right after the war. a lot of stuff was a matter of public record. so i had a great deal of material. the best thing i had was this, any war i ever fought most of instructions were sent by message back and forth. so you have hard copy record of every decision made. because of where we are today most of the orders and instructions are seventh back and forth by secured telephone.

it became apparent that we're not going have a record of the decisions made unless we have a record ourselves. any time i had a conversation i wrote down what i said and what is being said to me. i had someone in there who would write down every time i made a decision and he would log it into a private journal that we kept of every decision that was happening during the war. if it had not been through that the book would not be written. >> where are those 3,000 pages? >> they are mine. they are my private property. >> what are you going to do with them? >> i'm probably going to donate them to army war college archives, or something like that, asked that they be placed there and at the end of 10 years someone is going to have a ball and write the next version of a

book. >> what are you going to do with the hundreds of hours of tapes? >> i have them at home. >> donate them too? >> put them together in one package. i have to tell you something, five years ago i did not have any papers. one of the collections i have at home is all the stuff i saved from grana da. the map i carried around with me became the planning map, the enemy map that we captured that showed us where the enemy was that became our prime piece of intelligence. a lot of the briefing slides that i used after grana da to give talks about what happened i have all of that stuff at home. i kept that together it was the principle source i used for the chapter on granada.

then you send messages to the general and you accumulate stuff. when you leave you find some secretary kept all of that and filed it and she gives it to you. i took all of that stuff and put it in boxes and put it in the garage. i thought one of these days i will have to sort through this and throw it away. it will cost me a fortune to move to my next house. now, that is the -- now people want it. people say i would love to have all the stuff you have accumulated over the years. some of it, i don't know how they are going to make any sense of some of it. i'm left happened and my hand writing is not that great. >> you start off your book by saying you want to copy the u.s. grant memoirs, a two volume set. then yours became more emotional

than his. how many you did one volume and how many emotional? >> i will tell you why. first of all, grant is an interesting character. he refused to write his memoirs for years and years. finally he went bankrupt once again and found out he was dying and it kind of happened at the same time. he tells us at the front of the memoirs the only reason i'm writing this is because i went bankrupt again and i want to leave an estate for my family and they are offering me money. he is up front about it. >> when did you like him? >> he was a dirty boot soldier. >> when was he a soldier? >> he was a soldier long before the -- long before he was known to the american people as the

leader of the union army. he was out doing great things. grant is interesting. he was a success awful a soldier then a failure as a soldier then he was a success at a businessman. he hung in there. he was one of the most effective -- without a lot of press coverage and that sort of thing he was just out winning battles. that wonder line that lincoln said when he was talking about grant the guy out west winning all of these battles. someone said he is nothing but a drunk. lincoln said well, find out what whisky he drinks and i will send it to all of my troops. grant was a passionate man, cried many times and yet, still

prevailed. he understood the meaning of, you know, apply the maximum force to get it over as fast as you can because that is how you limit your casualties. >> you say back in december when secretary chaney came to visit you before the battle started in february that he brought with him a copy of the 11 part series on the civil war. all you generals watched it over there. not everyone of them but your group. why did you watch the series and what impact did it have on your think something >> i heard about it back in the state. the first time i started watching was for entertainment. we at that time, we worked seven days a week and we were working a 16-hour day.

people were getting ground into the dirt and my chief of staff came to me and said we have to give the troops a break. so we deviced a system, friday was a holy day and the day of rest we decided that one day a week we would break as many people as we could. what that did was allow them to kick back on thursday night, go out, sleep in on friday morning and we come to work at noon. left me without anything to do on thursday night. the first time i watched this program was one of those thursday nights. i heard what a wonderful series it was and all of a sudden, you know, it was -- we were in the process of planning this campaign. it was going to involve hundred of thousands of lives and what you are doing is viewing other campaigns that involved hundreds

of thousands of lives. to me, it took on an almost real life dimension. when they were reading the words of sherman, reading the words of grant, or stonewall jackson or the words of robert e. lee many of these emotions that i was feeling at the time. so it almost became hypnotic. there were so many hours you can watch so i didn't watch anymore for another week. then the next week i think i watched at least two of those tapes and sometimes three. i was mess moorized by the whole thing. >> did it impact the decisions you were make something >> not directly but it certainly attuned my brain to once again

the horrors of war and this is human life you're dealing with. this is not moving military symbols around a map. it became very much of an emotional experience as well as a business experience, if you want to call it that. >> another thing you say in the book that had an impact on you is seeing the broadway show "ben franklin in paris." why? >> i volunteered to go to vietnam, it was an advisory effort, it was not leading u.s. combat troops. a lot of people told me i was crazy. what are you doing this for? there is no career enhancement for you going over there and advising them and that sort of thing. i told them they don't understand. it is a sense of duty. i'm an instrument of war. i was not articulating my

possession well. then i saw "ben franklin in paris" and this wonderful last scene where ben franklin stands up about how will i find those americans then. will they love liberty given it to their crib for nothing. if you are not free you are lost without hope. and are they willing to die for it? that is one question that you have to ask, are you willing to die for it and the answer must be, yes, sir, i would. that is why i was going to vietnam. i have never forgotten those words. >> there's another point where you talk about the civilians in washington seeing too many rambo movies. >> there was an element

pressuring, i felt, for us to take action when we were not prepared to do that. and that, frankly, as early as november, i was called mccollum. >> general george mccould loum. >> yeah, because they saw a civil war series where he sits outside and won't attack lee. so schwarzkopf was referred to him. >> who is they? >> i don't know. i mean it. everyone comes after me and says name name. you know why i don't know name? because colin powell had the good sense not to give it to me. people in the national security counsel i don't know if -- colin was relaying to me what was going on in washington. we were trading information back and forth. when this came up i got burned.

this guy who watches the pbs series and he is operations -- schooled in the operational arts and is going to explain to schwarzkopf how to run war. this guy is so stupid. there is a big difference. he had outnumbered lee 10:1 and at the time we were outnumbered 3:1. i said to colin, i said who is the s.o.b. who said this i want to know? colin had the great wisdom to say no, just for get it. you don't need to know who it was. you worry about what is going on out there and i will worry about what is going on here in washington. everyone is convinced i know who it is and they bring up names

was it so and sew? i don't know. >> i think it was your daughter who said to you on the phone, norman schwarzkopf if you die i will never speak to you again. >> that was my wife. >> what is that story? >> the night the war was supposed to start, the decision was made 48 hours, i needed 48 hours -- we needed 48 hours to get everything rolling, to get the airplanes in the air, get the bombers loaded up, get the refueling set up. we needed 48 hours. after the january 15 deadline we got the word ok, it is a gop then you put all of that being in motion then there is nothing you do. you sit there. the night before the war was about to begin about 11:00 or 12:00 at night i did what most

people do. i sat down and wrote a letter to my family. by this time, we heard all the stuff about chemical missiles and we did not know if they were going to fire chemical missiles and we were going to have mass casualties. we did not know what was going do happen. even though i talked to them on the phone, twice a week, it was important for me to sit down and write a letter to my family and tell them how i felt about them. i wanted them to know that at the last minute they were important to me. they were the last thing in my mind before this war started. i don't know why. it is amazing how many people i talked to who did the same thing. i wanted them to have this piece of paper so when they were 25, 30, 40, or whatever and their father was killed and could pull out this paper and know their father -- so i wrote a letter and it is very emotional letter.

i put in the book and only did that after i asked my wife's permission to do that and i wrote this letter. then the war started. about two weeks later, three weeks later i call up one night and brenda was in tears. i said oh, my god, what is wrong? i thought something happened to the kids or to my dog. she just got the letter. i got your letter here and norman schwarzkopf if you get killed i will never speak to you again. >> is there anything in this book that you regret you put out there? that you wish you pulled back? >> i don't think so. unfortunately, with this a book like this people will go out and pull something out of context. people pulled out the one time i spoke about this dramatic moment

right before the ground war was about to begin, when colin powell was under pressure back there, i was under pressure by my commappedsers and we were debating, the weather was turning lousy and we were debating wait two days or not. that's the one thing that everybody grabbed out of context. but i did that because -- if this book is going to be any value at all to future military people, to students, it has to be honest. what it has to show is that it is a torturous process coming up with the decisions that involves the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. it is not simple. all war movies make everything look so easy. this guy comes in and says let's go toward then we go toward.

that is not how it goes. you get input from everywhere and people up and down the line have to make very, very tough calls and that is why that is in there. if it is read within the context that goes before and comes after it does not seem quite dramatic. read by itself it is very significant. >> we have a short time left but i want to end it with what you found when you were in vietnam in 1965. this is a document that you quote and it says -- this is a document i assume to the troops? >> the enemies captured this thing. showed it to one of my american advisors and he brought it to me and said look at this thing, look at what people have in their hands. >> it says "i know you are

facing more and more americans but don't worry. we're going to win the war the same we we won against the french. the american people are not tough enough to see the this war threw and we are. we can fight another 20 years and before then they will give up and not support their troops anymore and we will claim victory." did you carry that around with you? >> not >> was it in the back of your head all the time? >> sure it was in the back of my head. the one thing i thought about was are we getting involved in something that america can't support. when i went to zeverts storm it was a concern. american public opinion was going like this and there was a bunch of congressman coming out against what was going on and this sort of thing. i just thought the worst

possible thing that could happen to us is being over here halfway around the world in the middle of nowhere and not have the support of the american people. but the american people said not this time. we got over there and we got 100 tons of mail a day. by christmas we got 400 tons of mail a day from people all over saying as long as you are there we support you. we don't blame you for this war. >> here's what the book looks like and "it doesn't take a hero", norman schwarzkopf, thank you for being here. >> tomorrow on "washington journal" we'll continue looking at fiscal cliff negotiations and how americans will be affected if the deadline pass without a deal. followed by a look at presidential campaigning and the

influence of the legislator college with the author of the "rise of the presidential campaign." and an update with the sandy relief bill making its way through congress. "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> we started to get worried in the summer and the fall of 1774. the british were reporting to the crown that the colonists are trying to get ammunition and muskets and cannons. this is after the british sent war troops to boston. it was clear that they were pulling together ammunition maybe they did not entind to use it. that was a big debate. in 1774, basically, prohibited

british ships from taking ammunition and everything to the colonies unless it was sanctioned. so they were very alert to this. as soon as the colonies found out about the council prohibiting ammunition from being sent to the colonies in new hampshire and rhode island militias took over the forts and took over the ammunition. so everybody new knew it was coming in the winter of 1774 and 1775. >> he suggests that 1774 was critical. sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. >> next burt rutan contrast

today's space program to the space program decades ago. he designed spaceship one that was the first manned spaceship in 2004. then the aircraft that became the first airplane to fly around the world without refueling. this is about an hour and a half. >> i am going to talk about meanly two things. we are on the space coast, i guess, right? we will talk quite a bit about the history of manned space flight. pretty much that. i really welcome your questions when i am done. my first job out of college was

a government job. i worked for the air force. flight testing airplanes during the vietnam war. i did that for seven years. it was a wonderful thing for future airplane designer to do, and that is test brand new airplanes on their initial flights. after that, i became an entrepreneur. i was not involved in the manned space flight of the 1960's. i was an observer and i did my own thing with airplanes. i founded two companies and ran them for -- well, the one i just retire from for 30 years, and -- retired from for 30 years, and i basically stayed in the high desert until about a year ago. throughout my career building and running my companies, i never had a title on my business

card. it was never ceo. it was always burt rutan. i never thought about managing. i was an engineer with a passion to try a lot of new stuff and i have a lot of energy. i hired people because i could not do myself what i wanted to do, and so i had employees. and i respected the work that they did because i gave them good salaries and the very best dental and health insurance, better than lockheed. and i never thought that i was there to grow a business or to make a profit. in fact, the number one thing -- and i always said that even to those who held stock in my company -- the number one thing, the biggest priority for my

employees was to have fun. i enjoyed the accomplishment of breakthroughs and the fun of a first applied. and everyone who worked for me deserved to have that enjoyment. the second priority was the families of the employees have fun. that is why we provided good salaries and good health care and so on. the third priority, no cutting to make a profit. it is tough to say that to a stockholder or a board member. but every company i have ever seen go bankrupt, they started having fun -- they stop having fun before that. when people have fun, they will work like. that was my justification. now, driving up to north idaho, i went up to the desert and put myself way up on a big beautiful

lake. i wanted a completely different view. i was thinking, it was a long drive, 20 hours on the road. i was thinking, where did i want to do when i retire? and something jumped out at me that never surfaced before. it was not the 46 air plants. it was not solving problems with the f-4 in the air force. something jumped out at me. i thought, back there in mojave are 400 employees and their families and everyone of them pay taxes. you know, only half the people in the country paid taxes. every one of those people pay taxes. they would not have been there. that relieves the burden on all the other taxpayers. the government job burdens the

other taxpayers. to me, that kind of struck me as something as a significant personal accomplishment. i never realized or even thought about that until after i retired. ok, let me find the clicker and we will get going. let's try the button. ok. we are going to talk about manned space flight. the first flight we are going to talk about is that wonderful first nine years, at eight years really. this chart shows every one of the launch systems developed in the world during that short time. there are nine launch systems designed and flown during that time. vostok, the red stone, the atlas, the x-15, then gemini, the titan system, the russian soyuz.

somebody told me they could not lift it, but if it was in the gas, it could lift it. that is probably not true. [laughter] interesting thing -- seven of these nine were done by nasa.

and every one of the seven were flown without accidents. they never entered an astronaut on a space flight. that is quite an accomplishment. let's look at the next 42 years, but the lunar landing until now. i have put up here five systems. there is really only three that have flown, and new systems that have flown people to space within 42 years. there is the space shuttle. there is the chinese shenzhou and spaceshipone.

only three in 42 years. the ones on the bottom -- those will probably fly people into space at the next few years. spaceshiptwo. the richard branson program company is still working on. and of course, the dragon. kind of a short list for the next 42 years. how many in this audience were born before 1935? great. you know, the last audience i talked to a few weeks ago, there was not one person who raised his hand. [laughter] you who raised your hand are members of an extremely important group, because no one born after 1935 has walked on another world. and you know the crazy thing about it? there are actuary tables that show the right side of the chart. we may be within 10 years of having nobody alive on the earth that has gone to another world. isn't that a bizarre thoughts? or if there is anybody alive who has walked on another world, he speaks chinese.

that is probably what will happen in the next 10, 15 years. if you had told me in the 1960's when during a three and a half year time period, america sent 20 people to the moon and 12 of them walked on the surface, that there would be a time in the future when it nobody had been to the moon, i would have said, oh, my god. a meteor must have hit the earth. how could that possibly happen? how could to generate this phenomenal capability and then forget about it? alan shepard through this little suborbital flight -- not unlike what we did with spaceshipone -- just three weeks

after gagarin flew. if nasa had decided to fly 1 last monday, alan shepard would have been the first astronauts -- one less monkey, alan shepard would have been the first astronaut. and i am glad that they flew that monkey. isn't that weird? one monkey decision away from us even going to the moon. [laughter] 10 years, almost exactly 10 years after that, he was playing golf on the moon. hitting golf balls on the moon. what have you done in the last 10 years? [laughter]

ok, let's look at the next 10 years. 1971 until 1981. you had skylab. by the way, skylab -- this is our first space station. not the isss. skylab was completed in four years after the early sadr implied. skylab has a much bigger room to float around in than anything at the international space station. see that picture floating around? you had to blow to get to a wall. the international space station, you are almost touching everywhere. that was a neat thing to have. we did the robots, two planets. excuse me -- we did. i mean the world did. these are not nasa accomplishments. by the way, the mission to go to the planets -- this includes those that were launched. not all of them were successful.

but here is an average of 4.6 per year during that time of robotic planetary exploration. at the end of that time, exactly 10 years after the gulf on the moon, we have the first piloted space shuttle and more favorable access to space. now, in showing a slide that shows as three decades after that through 2011. 30 years. an average of two planetary missions per year. with robots.

the shuttle, the mir, the russian soyuz, the international space station can only go where gagarin and glen went on their first lead. that is the only place we can go. isn't that kind of weird? the last 30 years. there were four manned space flights in 1961. actually, four for the first year. from the time that gagarin flew, there were four manned space flights. in 2004, there were four manned space flights. i did three of them with spaceshipone. isn't that kind of weird that that long after the capability happened, i had to come out with three or four dozen people in mojave and fly most of the space flights to get back to the first

year's flight rate? total nonsense. ok, i want to make an observation as we get into innovation. our technical courage and accomplishments motivates all age groups, but i think it is particularly important for youngsters. five years after the apollo moon landing, america was first in awarding engineering, math, science doctorates. first in the world. now we are 37th. where is the demand? there is nothing exciting going non-. our kids seem to get excited because there is a new iphone out.

rather than we are going to the moon. i would like to talk a little bit about managers managing research companies. and manager, unless he himself is the creator, the technical mind, he overdoes -- excuse me, he does the wrong job. he should be out setting a goal only. he should also spend time raising the money peeping but he should not run the program. and this little quotation by a brilliant man -- if you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood. well, it is you, the manager, who has selected the materials to make the product. if you give them tasks to do, then he has decided the manufacturing method.

he thinks it is his responsibility as a manager because he is running the program, but what he will do is he will make a decision so that innovation cannot occur. and that is the main reason that companies that try to be innovative are not innovative. well, our technology leaders, the people who really inspired me, they were inspired by these wonderful things happening. i'm going to focus on a little period of time. as short as four years, maybe six or seven. it is that time that orville wright and his brother took off. the world realized -- they did not do that with photoshop. since that first flight, the people who had taken a flight could sit in that first wrote

and only three of you would have taken a turn. we did not even have the internet. can you imagine? going from that -- they were building 500 airplanes a year in france by then. in four years. and of course, the airplane was invented by natural selection. we did not know how to do with. the ones that did not tell the pilot, they are today's airplane. [laughter] i believe that kids were inspired by this wonderful short

period of time. on the 100th anniversary of the wright brothers applied, at aviation week asked me and others to say what i thought about the first 100 years of aerospace. who were the movers and shakers. they wanted me to predict the next 100 years. i refused. i went ahead and i wrote an article and i picked these people and i was fortunate enough to have met all but two of these people. i think these were the ones that come to me, were the ones that really made aerospace in that first 100 years. if you do not know korlov, he was the van braun of russia. who was inspired by them -- i found out later and realized later that everyone on that list was between the age of 4 and 13. and seeing that innovation gives them the courage to try

something really hard, and that is why they did the accomplishment. my first business was an aircraft factory and it worked primarily with the public, selling plans to people to build their own home built airplanes peiping -- airplanes. we did 15 airplanes and so plans for five of them. i think now, how the heck did i do that? 15 airplanes. what was the process from selling five of them?

and i only sold paper, i only seoul plans. wow, i must have a lot of fun. the voyager was built on the profits from very easy plan sales. they were based on fun, grass- roots find. the public interface. this is where we took the voyager to oshkosh. i think this is before the world flight. this was a milestone accomplishment. the interesting thing about it technically, if you have an ultimate record that is not weight class or propeller or whatever, but overall record, how to record, speed record -- usually when you be the old record, you beat it by at least 1% or they do not give it to you. but usually they are beat by a few percent.

voyager in order to make it around the world, we had to fly more than twice as far than any other airplane had flown. we had to more than double an existing ultimate record. i am going to skip over the business aspects. skill composite's. i founded, before i stopped selling plans, i have a three- year time period where i had a company that would build a part and i would run back and forth. that is why i quit selling plans in 1985, by the way, for home developers. we did a couple of programs at rutan aircraft that did not involve the public. one of them was for nasa. another one of fort fairchild republic, a military trainer. this was a different kind of business.

i decided to found a different kind of company for it, one that would not be burdened with a product liability impacts that public companies had. so, scale was formed in 1982. this is a chronology list of the projects we can talk about. the first one, the starship and the microlight were basically done at the same time. the world's largest airplane. this seems weird, but they are. i worked with them for more than 20 years with conceptual design, and it got funded after a retired. my old company -- it is not an old company, it is about 30 years. this is a staggering chronology of the timeline of the project.

ok, why is there going to be finally and opportunity for the public to go into space? why now? spaceshipone for me was a personal goal. yes, it was funded by paul allen. he thought i should do it and he had a passion for space flight because of the apollo launch. [laughter] i think what gave me the inspiration and the courage to try something really it far out there -- i had never built an airplane that went faster than 27.6 mach numbers.

by building spaceshipone, i told my shop we were going to build an airplane that was going to go as fast as an sr-71. mach 3.5 straight up. you can guess what they thought of me. [laughter] the new space, people using their own money, the new space investors -- allen, musk, bezos, the google guys -- every one of these guys was a little kid during apollo. coincidence? ok, let's move on to spaceshipone. i think paul wanted to do this for legacy.

as it turns out, spaceshipone has been a profitable business for them. can you imagine an investor going out into the desert and having people do research where the actuaries, the insurance companies do that hole in one insurance, gave $10 million to paul? they said it could not be done. he went out and did that because of his curiosity. now, you would have thought that $20 million or so -- well, that is just pocket change if you have $126 billion, right? he got almost half his money back. richard branson gave him another couple million to put a virgin on it for two flights. he got half his money back right away. he has been licensing the technology for the tethered reentry and is still turning back on it. that is weird.

can you imagine, at nasa doing space research and it is profitable? no, you cannot imagine that. [laughter] you guys are from florida. you cannot imagine that. i put this in just because i think our astronauts are handsome. the balding one there is two or three years older then they will allow someone to fly an airplane, but he is a very good pilot. we had to build our own b-52. what i did was put every system, every system on the space ship, we put on the white knight. it is avionics. it is the environmental control system.

that is the space ship cabin. qualified to go into space. every component of the space ship one that had any issues about the maturity is in that plane. spaceshipone is a very simple glider with a very throaty engine that runs for a minute. it is at supersonic for reentry. the reason it does is that mike adams got killed while i was working at edwards during reentry. he did not have the pitch accurate within about that much range and he did not have the yaw accurate within about that much rain, and that haunted me. i thought that was the reason we would not have commercial space flight.

the pilot for spaceshipone reentry -- by the way, there is not autopilot. the only thing controlling those controls are the rudder pedals on a mock 0.3 airplane. you have the electric fin on the tail. just like a piper cub. [laughter] weird, huh? you could be at apogee in spaceshipone, eat your lunch, handoff, and do as a free entry -- safe reentry. you're not putting yourself at risk like mike adams put himself at risk. this is just a picture is google earth.

out to the right is the white knight climbing 50% more altitude than an airliner. going up about 50,000 feet. from up there, about 70 miles, you're looking on the horizon. this is why we stopped flying space ships. i wanted to fly one every five months to show reliability and cost for future space tourism. however, the historian at the smithsonian aerospace museum did something i thought he would not do until after people were buying tickets and flying in space. he defined spaceshipone -- the prototype. there was only one. he defined that article as an

important historical artifacts. and if i gave it to them, he would display it right alongside the spirit of st. louis added the first airplane to break the sound barrier and all those that went to the moon. you know, all of these milestone airplanes. he would put it there and it would sit there forever. now, paul allen thought about this in this way and said, hey, i did this program for legacy. go fly it again. i reminded him, he could get almost half his money back with two or three more flights. so, we did that. well, is it possible to have public flying in space? i think it is the odd for norse in competition -- entrepreneurs in competition. there has never been any competition.

they are applying the same thing that they flew garagin in, essentially. naca never build an airliner. nasa has build a space ship, but they have no competition. the belief that i can do it is the same thing, i believe, that a few of those guys in a hobby into a sub orbital space flight. i think this is something similar to the optics back in 2008. i can do that. and the courage to try risky concept. i think the research needs to be justified not by politics and science.

when i say politics -- nasa, which works at the direction of the president, it gets its money from congress -- a lot of what they have done has really not been doing what the public thinks nasa ought to do. it is used as a political tool with russia and the mir program. and of course, now, there is nothing politically important about going to mars, but there are political things about muslim outreach and all of these things that nasa is doing right now. let's talk about science for a moment. i talked to a group of nasa at specialists, and ask them, why do we have a space station? and they said, oh, for science. i said, name the three most important science breakthroughs because of the space station?

weird. [laughter] okay, let's talk a little bit about what richard branson is doing now. a new industry, public access sub orbital space. it is being done sub orbital because the problem has not been solved for it to be safe enough or affordable enough for you to go to work it. it is solvable, but it has not even been tried. nasa has not worked to reduce the cost of space flight or but. they developed the shuttle, put all their money in that for all these decades. the shuttle is more expensive to fly than throwing away the boosters. failed. it was supposed to be safer.

statistically the shuttle is the most dangerous way to go to space. failed. that's weird. no, it's not. it's government. [laughter] yes, richard branson is as wild and weird and -- he is just like to see on television. cool guy. i think the steps will be likely virgin galactic, someone else may be first. people need to be exposed to a large cavan. you cannot go in a cramped space ship and spender week in orbit. it has to be about the destination, your launch vehicle. and the windows have to be big. you really want to see. the goal and the plan now,